Europe's
anti-war left are ecstatic over the US military detention center in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after a screening of the British motion picture
The Road to Guantanamo.

The
film's director claims he reconstructed scenes of torture and abuse
at Guantanamo Bay and his experience making the film has increased
his resolve to bring about the immediate closure of the US-run camp.

Michael
Winterbottom's film shows prisoners in orange jumpsuits being beaten
by American soldiers, chained to the floors of their cells, and subjected
to deafening music in solitary confinement. It purports to tell the
story of Asif Iqbal, Ruhel Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul, the so-called Tipton
Three, who set off for Pakistan in September 2001 and ended up in
Camp Delta, in Cuba's Guantanamo Bay. They were released without charge
after more than two years' imprisonment.

Mr.
Winterbottom told the British newspaper, The Independent: "What's
most shocking isn't the torture or the shackling, it's that Guantanamo
Bay exists at all. I think it should be closed down, and last week
the United Nations said it should be closed down."

(Wow,
three guys captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan say they were
mistreated at Gitmo -- that's good enough for me. Let's free all the
prisoners.)

Winterbottom,
as with many on the left, believes the United Nations report on Gitmo
is accurate. Of course, the United Nations human rights people never
bothered to visit the US detention center before condemning the conditions
that exist there, and Winterbottom never visited the facility either.
His whole film is based on interviews with suspected terrorists and
nowhere does he even hint that they may be embellishing their stories.

Winterbottom
also criticized his own government's "perverse" refusal to come to
the aid of the eight British residents still incarcerated in the camp
in Cuba. Mr. Winterbottom added, "There are still 500 people in Guantanamo.
They are still experiencing all the things that we filmed."

But
what things are they experiencing? Winterbottom uses the euphemism
"reconstruction" rather than what his film truly is: a dramatization
based on the unsworn testimony of three suspected terrorists who were
close enough to the Afghan battlefield to be captured.

The
so-called Tipton Three would have us believe that they were on their
way to Afghanistan from the United Kingdom and were suddenly snatched
up by the United States counterterrorists for absolutely no reason
at all. In a nation -- Afghanistan -- inhabited by Middle Eastern
Muslims, we are expected to believe that these three men were singled
out for abduction and later torture as if there weren't enough "real"
terrorists and enemy combatants to capture.

Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw rebutted the claims of torture and mistreatment
during a radio interview in London. He said, "I am absolutely clear
the US has no intention of maintaining a gulag in Guantanamo Bay.
They want to see the situation resolved and they would like it other
than it is. However, that is the situation that they have."

He
said the US was reducing the numbers held there, but added: "The problem
is what to do with those that are left, and that is a matter which
the US administration are going to have to take their own decisions
on, and frankly I'm not going to second-guess the decisions they make."

So
far, US intelligence tracked 14 men released from Gitmo who returned
to the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan. One is believed to have
joined the terrorist group Hezbollah. The Pentagon has estimated there
may be as many as 100 who have returned to their lives as terrorists
and militants in the Middle East.

Mr.
Winterbottom's film, The Road to Guantanamo, mixes interviews with
the Tipton Three with dramatized reconstructions of how they ended
up in US military hands. They say that they decided to travel to Afghanistan
after hearing a preacher in a Pakistani mosque call for volunteers
to help with conducting aid work in the neighboring country.

However,
records show these three men were actually captured on the battlefield
in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance fighters. The Northern Alliance
alleged that the so-called Tipton Three were in fact joining the Taliban
and Al-Qaeda to fight against the US forces who were retaliating for
the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the US

When
the war started in October 2001 they were "trapped" and ended up being
captured by Northern Alliance fighters who handed them over to US
military forces.

Mr.
Winterbottom is free to make all the films his heart desires, but
calling this particular film a documentary is beyond deceitful. There
is no actual footage used except for his three "stars" complaining
about their treatment. In fact, you only see the Tipton Three being
interviewed. The filmmaker hired Middle Eastern actors to play their
roles during filming of the "reconstructions."

As
with Michael Moore's films, the left is bestowing awards galore on
the film. It's already won top honors at the Berlin Film Festival.
And like a Michael Moore film it reeks of propaganda and bias. Not
one representative from the International Red Cross is shown on camera
saying that they find no evidence of abuse or torture at Guantanamo
Bay.

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Winterbottom
is looking for a US distributor for his fantasy and will probably
find one. His film will be undoubtedly be welcomed by the US liberal-left
including Senator Dick Durbin who compared Guantanamo to a gulag,
the soldiers to Nazis, and the prisoner treatment to the killing fields
of Cambodia.

Jim Kouri, CPP
is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs
of Police. He's former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington
Heights nicknamed "Crack City" by reporters covering the drug war in the
1980s. He's also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police
and security officers throughout the country.

He writes for
many police and crime magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times,
The Narc Officer, Campus Law Enforcement Journal, and others. He's appeared
as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including
Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc. His book
Assume The Position is available at Amazon.Com, Booksamillion.com, and
can be ordered at local bookstores.